


Ralph Dibny vs Plastic Man

by jayofmo



Category: DCU, The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-11
Updated: 2016-09-11
Packaged: 2018-08-14 09:08:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8007385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jayofmo/pseuds/jayofmo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Following up my fics with Elongated Man and Plastic Man in the DC TV universe (primarily The Flash and Arrow), here's one where they meet and have a good old fashioned rivalry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ralph Dibny vs Plastic Man

 

“Mister Plastic Man, I've been expecting you!” said Cisco Ramon with a big grin on his face as he held out his hand to greet the red-clad man entering STAR Labs.

“Hey there,” Plas replied, peering through his goggles. “You must be Cisco. Ollie says you're practically a wizard.”

“He does, huh?” Cisco chuckled. “Well, I've been wanting to examine you.”

“I thought you were a wizard, not an evil scientist.”

“Please, only on my bad days. Your powers are kind of similar to another hero I've met, Ralph Dibny, the Elongated Man?”

Plas shrugged. “Never heard of him.”

“Yeah, he can stretch his body.”

“Cool, so can I.”

“Exactly, and I want to see how that works.”

“Okay, so is this like an x-ray?” Plas asked. He didn't know his way around here.

“Well, one part anyway. It's right through that door.” Cisco pointed to a closed off room.

Plas stretched his arm toward the door and opened it. Squeezing the rest of himself into a ball, he retracted on his arm, slinging himself through the door.

“… Okay, that's cool!” Cisco chuckled as Plas strapped himself down to the seat.

Cisco sat down at his computer to see the results of the scan which instantly began.

“That's different!” Cisco said out loud as the results came in.

“What is it?” Plas asked as he slid out of the room. “Give it to me straight, doc.”

“Your body is basically an organic polymer. You have no bones, no internal organs I can detect, no veins, no arteries… You really are a plastic man.”

“Good to know,” Plas chuckled. He'd turned himself into a small Newton's cradle on Cisco's desk, the five balls striking each other and making the one on the end fly out and start the cycle again.

“Yeah, that other guy, Ralph, he...”

“I what?” asked Ralph Dibny, the Elongated Man, walking into the lab. He was wearing his costume under a light jacket.

“I swear, can just anyone walk in here?” Cisco wondered.

“Says the guy who wasn't talking to anyone,” Ralph chuckled.

“I was talking to him,” Cisco replied, pointing to Plas, still in his Newton's cradle form.

“Cisco, are you okay?” Ralph asked. “Maybe you've been spending too much time in...”

Plas snapped back to his normal form, hopping to the floor.

“...the lab...” Ralph finished, trailing off.

Cisco crossed his arms.

“As I was saying, Ralph here takes some gingold, which activates his metahuman abilities, and allows him to safely warp and stretch his body, but otherwise, he's a normal guy.”

“Maybe he's not so special,” Plas suggested with a smirk. “Maybe gingold does that to anyone.”

“That's a negative,” Cisco replied. “I tried it once. Lost my lunch, breakfast, and probably my dinner from the night before.”

“Yeah, gingold isn't exactly what I'd call a sensational flavor,” Ralph shrugged as he took off his jacket. “Took me awhile to get used to the flavor. And the aftertaste.”

“And then there was that one time it went sour and you turned into a super-powerful villain,” Cisco chuckled.

“What?” Plas asked curiously.

“NOTHING!” Ralph huffed.

“Well,” Plastic Man said with a grin, “I think I can safely say I'm the better stretchable hero. I don't have to juice up for it.” He puffed up his chest to look more impressive.

“Wait, EXCUSE ME?” Ralph exclaimed. “You can stretch all you want, but it doesn't matter if you don't got the brains to back it up.” He puffed up his chest to look a bit bigger than Plas.

“Oh, I've got plenty of know-how, buddy,” Plas chuckled. “Just try me, any day of the week!”

“I'll take you right now!” Ralph replied, leaning towards Plas.

“This should be fun,” Cisco chuckled, sipping a soda he had at his desk. “But you guys know… I set up a gym especially designed for people like you two.”

Ralph looked over to Cisco. “When did you have time to do that?”

Plas looked a little puzzled. “Much less the funding...”

“Never mind that,” Cisco went on. “So you can try to fill up the lab with yourselves or see who can shape themselves into whatever they want better, or you can try out my machines and see who's the best at working them.”

“I can already tell it'll be me,” Plas chuckled. “Go ahead, give me the trophy.”

“Hey, you haven't won anything yet!” Ralph remarked. “Let's give it a go, Cisco.”

“All right then,” Cisco sighed. “Come with me, this way.”

He led the two into a hall. Ralph walked close behind Cisco. Plas followed in the form of a bouncing ball.

“Can't you take anything seriously?” Ralph asked him.

“Yeah, how much I'm going to win.”

Cisco opened a door. Plas resumed his normal form and the three walked in.

“Okay… This looks like a normal room,” Ralph observed.

“That leads to another room,” Plas went on.

Cisco stepped into a door and closed it. It led to a small hall that had a window running alongside the small connected rooms.

“You guys just go on ahead, I'll be running the controls from here,” he explained. “You just walk on to the next room and see what you have to work with.”

They shrugged and walked on to the next room. As soon as they were in, Cisco hit a control and the ceiling dropped on them, squashing both of them flat onto the floor. It quickly retracted, letting Cisco see both of them looking comically up from their compressed bodies.

“Ow,” groaned Ralph.

“Did it hurt?” Cisco asked cautiously.

“No, but it was kind of a shock anyway.” Ralph popped back to normal.

“You okay, Plas?” Cisco asked.

“Yeah,” Plas replied from the floor.

“Oh, what, you can't bounce back from that?” Ralph chuckled. He peeled Plas off of the floor. “See, Cisco, I'm clearly the better one, gingold or not.”

He rolled Plas into a ball and playfully tossed him against the wall. Plas bounced back, growing in size, knocking Ralph over.

“I had to,” Plas chuckled, turning back to normal.

Ralph pulled himself off the floor.

“Okay, so… who won that round?” he groaned.

“Well, you bounced back first, but Plas used the situation to his advantage,” Cisco said. “I’d say you both came up with your own approaches to the predicament, so I’m calling this a tie.”

“Oh, come on!” Ralph shouted. “I can do that, too, you know!”  
  
To demonstrate, he rolled himself into a ball and bounced against a wall, aiming to bounce at Plas, who automatically turned his hands into large paddles and whacked Ralph back against the wall. Ralph bounced between the wall and his opponent a few times before turning back to normal, slumping on the floor.

“That doesn’t count!” Ralph gasped after a moment. “Cisco had already called it.”  
  
“Yeah,” Cisco commented, “but it was fun to watch.”

“Come on, next room,” chuckled Plas as he pulled Ralph up.

 

The next room Cisco led them to had a pair of odd-looking machines.

“Are these taffy pullers?” Ralph asked incredulously.

“Well, you see,” Cisco explained, “these move at a slightly higher speed than a taffy puller and there’s some different motions and...”

“Yes, they’re taffy pullers,” Plas cut in. “So, you want us to get wound up on these?”

“Well, yeah, you let yourself get tangled up for a couple minutes, then we see who can resume their normal shape first.”

“How the heck did you come up with that?” Ralph wondered with his eyes wide and his brow furrowed.

“I just tried to figure what you’d be able to take.”

Plas offered his hand to Ralph with a smile. “May the best man win,” he said with a grin.

Ralph shook the extended hand. “Yeah, we already know who that’s gonna be.”

“And gentlemen,” called Cisco, “we are off!”

He hit a button and the machines sprang to life, their gears whirring around.  
“Er…” mumbled Ralph.

Plastic Man pushed him toward a machine before hopping in the other one.

“Argh!” grunted Ralph as the machine stretched and pulled his body to long, ropey lengths, looping them onto the machine’s arms where they were stretched and pulled again.

The same thing was happening to Plas, but instead of grunting, he’d crack an occasional joke such as, “I didn’t expect to be seeing that part of me in front of my eyes this morning.”

Cisco watched in wonder as the two stretchable men were pulled into new forms.

“Wicked,” he whispered.

“Has it been two minutes yet?” Ralph muttered.

Cisco glanced at the timer. The machine had actually been running for five.

“Oh, sorry, time flies when you’re having fun!” He deactivated the machines, making them stop.

“Speak for yourself,” chuckled Plas as he looked over at the bewildered stretched out Ralph.

“Okay, who can get un-tangled first?” asked Cisco.

Ralph began struggling against the bars. They turned with him, unreeling himself. He began willing his body to snap back to normal and soon, he began winding off and in a moment, stood in his normal form on the floor.

Plastic Man had a different approach and had let his body snap back to normal right away. So by the time Ralph had gotten himself off of the machine, Plas was already waiting for him to finish.

“You know,” Plas said casually, “I could’ve let my body go to a more fluid state and then reform after I fell off the bars.”

“That would be SO COOL!” Cisco gaped.

“That’d be SO WEIRD!” Ralph added.

“All right, who won that round?” Plas asked, bored.  
  
“Gonna have to give it to you,” Cisco sighed. “Although Ralph there did pretty good. All right, next room.”

 

The next room they entered had a small number of metal drums, wooden crates, and a few wall hangings.

“This room is all about stealth,” Cisco explained. “You have to conceal yourself quickly and efficently. Then, I’ll call someone in and whoever manages to get the drop on them wins this round.”

“Okay,” Plas chuckled. “Count of three… Three, two, one, GO!”

On the last word, Ralph and Plas scurried to their hiding places and had concealed themselves in a minute.

“All right,” Cisco said. He touched an earpiece. “Hey, Barry, you busy? Cool. Can you pop by here real quick?”

In a flash, the Flash himself stood in the gym. He looked over at the wall.

“Cisco?” he asked.

Plas sprang out at Barry from behind a picture on the wall while Ralph slipped out of a crate. Both grabbed Barry by the shoulders and began wrapping themselves around him.

“Yike, Cisco!” Barry yelled before seeing who it was. “Oh… hey, Ralph… and… Plastic Man… nice to meet you.”

“Pleasure’s all mine,” Plas said as he and Ralph peeled off and resumed their forms.

Well, Ralph resumed his normal form. Plastic Man used his abilities to make himself look exactly like the Flash.

“You know what they say,” Plas remarked, “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”  
  
“Hey, knock it off,” Ralph protested. “You trying to get bonus points or something?”

“Well, for getting the drop on the Flash, it’s another tie,” Cisco announced. “Seriously, Barry? You let them get the drop on you?”

“Well, I didn’t know!” Barry laughed as Plas resumed his normal form.

“But that does give me an idea,” Cisco continued. “Next and final round we’ll see how you do at imitating things.”

“I can do that!” Ralph grunted as he copied Barry’s face. His hair color aside, it was spot on.

“Um… Maybe not imitating people,” Cisco shrugged. “I mean, can either of you change color?”  
“If I hold my breath for a moment, I turn blue,” Plas joked. “But no.”

“No,” Ralph said, resuming his normal face.  
  
“Anyway, I think I’d already give it to Plas there because we have to face it, his physiology lets him do it more quickly. It’d be like pitting your detective skills against his street smarts.”

“I don’t call them that,” Plas commented.

“So basically, I’m considering that a handicap when evaluating your results,” Cisco explained.

“Hey, can you do this?” Ralph asked, elongated the bridge of his nose and making it wiggle, “I’m smelling a mystery.”

“No one actually thinks that’s a super power,” Barry chuckled. “You just do that for publicity.”

Ralph clammed up.

“Anyway, thanks for the help, Barry,” Cisco said. “See you later.”  
  
“Anytime, bud!” Barry zoomed out of the building.

“Okay, just try to make yourselves inconspicuous as only you can.”

In a minute, Ralph had bent himself over and turned himself into a desk. Plas had picked up on this and turned himself into a wheeled rotating office chair.  
  
“Good ones, guys!” Cisco cheered as he watched. “Now, what if you were outside?”

The two sprung back to their normal shapes before Ralph formed himself into a newspaper box and Plas expanded his bulk into a stylish red car.  
  
“Nice!” Cisco called. “Just better watch it with the lack of license plates, Plas!”  
  
Plas pretended to rev his engine, even though it just sounded like a guy saying, “Vroom! Vroom!”

Ralph popped back to normal. “I was thinking of a mailbox or a fire hydrant, then remembered faking one of those can get you in trouble.”

“Good thinking!” Cisco said. “You know what, you both did good, but I think Ralph put more thought into his, so I’m giving this to him.”

“Woo hoo!” cheered Ralph.

“Wait,” said the car, “that gives us an even score. It’s a tie.”  
  
“Yeah,” Cisco said. “You’re both really good at what you do even with similar powers.”

“There’s no tiebreaker?” Ralph asked.

“Nope. I mean, you guys can figure something out between yourselves if you want, but I’m satisfied.”

Plash turned himself into a steam roller (sans steam of course).

“How about we see how thin he can spread?” he chuckled before rolling over Ralph, squashing him flat.  
  
Ralph popped back to normal,

“Hey, maybe you better turn yourself into a chicken since you can’t fight me like a man!”  
  
Plas popped back to his human form and turned to Ralph.

“Only chicken I see here is you!” he chuckled.

Ralph gritted his teeth and drove a fist towards Plas’ face, stretching his neck back. Plas returned a blow to Ralph’s chest.  
  
“Guys!” called Cisco as the two began trying to get a punch in on each other, beginning to snake over themselves.  
  
“Come on, admit it! I’m better!” Plas yelled.

“I’m not admitting nothing!”

Cisco touched his earpiece. “Barry, I need your help in here again!”  
  
With a zoom, Barry appeared in the room.  
  
“What’s going on here?” he asked in surprise.

“They’re fighting over who’s the better stretchable hero!” Cisco groaned. “My tests came up as a tie!”  
  
“Yeah, I’m not getting involved,” Barry huffed before he zoomed out again.  
  
“Great...” Cisco sighed.  
  
In a few moments, ropes of the two heroes laid on the floor, tangled and tied up in knots with each other.  
  
“Truce?” gasped Ralph.  
  
“Truce,” Plas agreed.

Cisco opened a door in the dividing wall. “Well, going to untie yourselves?”  
  
The two began tugging at their knots.  
  
“Um… We seem kind of stuck,” Ralph admitted.

Cisco tugged at a knot.

“Do I want to know what I’m touching?”  
  
“No,” Ralph said.  
  
“Yes,” Plas said.

Cisco rolled his eyes before he got a call in his earpiece.

“Hey, Cisco, this is Sue,” said the caller. “I’m heading in, I met this gentleman called Woozy Winks? Really nice gentleman. He’s accompanying me?”  
  
“Great,” Cisco said with a grin. “Head on in, I’ll meet you at the door. We’re going to need both of you.”


End file.
